


Ending Three: Holmes, Fairfax Holmes

by grassle



Series: the desire And the spasm [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: God knows, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:05:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Go Johnny Go Go Go Go ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ending Three: Holmes, Fairfax Holmes

John was, at that moment, making his way up the stairs to 221B, having been to the dry cleaners, the launderette, the library, taken his passport to the post office to send off for renewal, his gun to the gunsmith’s for cleaning and his ancient teddy bear to the toy hospital for repair. What a busy morning running errands.

He twitched his nose at the acrid smell which seemed to hang about the house. He entered the living room and decided to have another crack at Facebook – he was tired of not being able to work it properly and clicking and changing things he didn’t mean to. There came a heavy noise from downstairs, someone stumbling up the stairs, carrying something? Then a series of thumps at the door and a muffled male voice:

“Sherlock, let me in! Better late than never! Sherlock! Sherlock, you wanker! You – Are not Sherlock.”

“I know,” replied John, leaning against the door he’d just opened. “I’m John. His flatmate. And you are?”

“Late to the party, but determined to have a good time now I’m here? A little lost lamb needing a place to crash for the weekend?”

The unrepentant visitor hefted a box, filled with brightly coloured bottles of drink, from what John could see, under one arm to free a hand and push his sweep of fringe out of his eyes. It didn’t work – his messy hair, which was longer and more rumpled than Sherlock’s, but straighter, and in the sort of style that made John think _shag_ , for some reason, sprang back again, catching in his improbably long eyelashes, and he tilted his head back to peer down through his fringe as he eyed John.

John eyed him back. Tall, pale, well-dressed in a dark suit and waistcoat and open-necked white shirt, the man was obviously a Holmes. Although he had a slightly rougher-looking appearance, with that louche stubble and those slightly bloodshot eyes and freshly fuck-me hair, he had the same long-boned build, and his words were uttered in Mycroft and Sherlock’s deep, cultured tones. John thought he was possibly even taller than Mycroft, or maybe all that gazing arrogantly down just made him look taller. Maybe he was wearing shoe lifts, like a scientologist? John took a discreet peep downward – no, just highly polished lace-ups.

He looked up again, and the stranger had jammed the box between a hip and the door frame and was slouching with crossed arms, a smirk on his Cupid’s bow lips, and a speculative gleam in his petrol blue eyes.

“No, I wasn’t – No”. John blushed at having been caught checking the bloke out – NO, at the bloke thinking he’d been checking him out. When he hadn’t been. At all.

The stranger held out a hand. “Fairfax Holmes. Or Holmes Tertius, if you will. Or even if you won’t.”

“Do what?”

The man, Fairfax, sighed. “Am I going to have to force my way in?”

“Stop trying to top me!”

“WHAT?”

“I said, stop being so toppy. STROPPY! Stop being so stroppy!” blustered John.

“That’s what I thought you said,” smirked Fairfax, the gleam now a definite “come hither.”

“Please.” John took the box and motioned Fairfax to precede him. He frowned at the renewed leer on the man’s face. “No, I wasn’t – no. That time, no.”

And he coloured red as he stomped inside, then whipped around and grinned in his turn, because, yes, Fairfax was totally ogling him. Ha. Faixfax’s method of carrying his luggage was to boot his squashy bag in front of him, punting it into the living room. Well, John supposed, all the breakables must be in this box.

“I don’t know where Sherlock is,” said John.

“What’s he been burning now?” asked Fairfax, looking around.

“What?”

“Never mind. Some habits you never grow out of, I suppose.”

Fairfax paused in front of the mantelpiece and stroked the skull. He murmured, “Salut, pépé,” before turning to John.

“I realise I missed the ceremony, but –”

“The how much?” Really, John thought, for an aspiring novelist, his vocabulary was lamentable today. Execrable. Inexcusable. Not that he’d ever wanted to be a novelist. Oh, he dutifully wrote up his blog, of course, trying to make it exciting and readable, but he was no Jeffrey Archer, he knew that. No, being stuck on the loo all night after that dodgy curry with nothing to read but the novelty “Increase Your Word Power” bog roll was what had put the writing idea in his head. He’d unrolled the bog paper and read it right through - synonyms, antonyms, tests every five sheets - before having to use it all up.

And some of his new vocab had come in handy. He’d told Sherlock not to be so sphallolalic towards Molly. Well, the poor woman deserved better than being subjected to Sherlock’s flirty talk that went nowhere. The day after, he’d commented that his usually barefoot flatmate, curling his toes into the rug in pleasure, liked being a nelipot*. Sherlock had in turn remarked on John’s inaniloquence. John had been pleased at first, until he’d looked it up.

John tried to catalogue the similarities and differences between the three brothers. This one didn’t have Mycroft’s secret-king-of-the-world air of “oh how very boring it is to have to be in charge of you all,” nor Sherlock’s other-wordly “oh how very boring you all are,” manner. Still, as Jake might say, that wasn’t so much a “come hither” look in Fairfax’s eyes as a “come and get it. Here,” one. John even shivered a little, under the gymnophoria** he was experiencing.

“Kitchen still through here?”

“What, it moves?” asked a baffled John.

Fairfax rolled his eyes as he grabbed his box of supplies from him.

“Oh, you mean, you’ve been here before? You were being polite?”

“What say we have a drink,” said Fairfax, taking out pint glasses John didn’t even know they had and then busying himself with coffee liquor. “And yes, I have. Sherlock and I looked over the place when we were thinking of flatsharing.”

“Huh?”

“Only, it wasn’t deemed a good idea, he and I, as I’d be leaving the kid on his own so much – I’m away a lot, with the modelling…”

“Hunh?” And John took a really good look at the Poise, and the Swagger, and the Hair, and the Eyes, and the Cheekbones, and the Shoulders, and the Wrists, and the Legs, and… “Modelling? You’re a model? You’re a model.”

“One dabbles,” replied Fairfax, shrugging, spinning the top off a bottle of tequila. “Sherlock too. Only of course he retired, to spend time on that silly detecting hobby of his.”

“Shhh –” John’s eyes were bugging out of his head, and he couldn’t get further than that syllable. He thought he might never be able to.

“Of course! Where do you think his clothes came from? D’you think he makes that kind of cash chasing after old ladies’ stray pussies? Well, there was that one time… Well, I say retired. It was sort of forced on him, after that incident with Karl Lagerfeld… His best fan got snapped right in half, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. I say, steady on.” John folded his arms and looked pointedly at the metal straw Fairfax was taking out of a bag.

Fairfax gave him a look which reminded him of Mycroft.

“Flaming?” he asked, putting down a bottle of Grande Marnier.

“I wouldn’t go that far. That’s not to say I haven’t dabbled, too,” replied John, feeling a bit out of his depth.

“B52 in the desert?” Fairfax enquired.

“Well yes, it was, actually, during deployment, but I don’t know how you can tell that…oh!”

John watched Fairfax set light to two of the row of pint glasses filled to the brim with three differently coloured layers. Blue flames danced, and Fairfax stuck a metal straw in John’s mouth and put a hand on his back, forcing him to bend forward and drain a glass. Fairfax finished his first. John coughed and spluttered but came up grinning like a loon. This was just like med school.

“Why so many?” he wheezed, indicating the rest of the row.

“Things only get interesting after the third. Saves time,” replied Fairfax.

“So, a model, eh?” said John, attempting to lean casually against the counter and rolling around a bit before he steadied himself. “Anything else I should know?”

“You should probably know I’m as gay as a bunch of balloons,” replied Fairfax, giving him a sideways look from one slanted eye as he reached for his lighter again.

“And you should probably know I’ve been known to enjoy a bit of bunting myself from time to time,” quipped John, channelling Jake.

Fairfax turned, a pained Mycroftian look on his face.

“Yeah, no, that doesn’t really work? What I said, and what you said?”

“Oh, shut up and sup up,” giggled John, incautiously taking up a flaming glass. “It only has to work enough to get me laid.”

“Oh, little man,” breathed Fairfax, “You had me at ‘let me grab myself a piece of that ass.’” He flashed a wolfish grin and clinked his glass against John’s, saying in a silken purr, “Bottoms up.” And yes, he quirked an eyebrow.

The gay is on! It is so on! thought John, his wuffly snicker turning into a huge guffaw. Hey, that was a great line! He bloody well had to write that line down for Jake!

He needed an excuse to slip up to his room anyway. He had to put Mr MacCuddles away safely in his drawer: the evening promised to hold things no self-respecting teddy bear should ever have to witness.

 

*someone who walks without shoes

  
*the sensation of being mentally undressed by someone


End file.
